


et vertice sidera tangam (and I will reach the stars with the crown of my head)

by Medea_Nunc_Sum



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angels, Asexuality Spectrum, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Demons, Genderfluid Character, Historical, Historical Figures, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Poet!Crowley, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), sometimes you have to roll the dice and decide 'yep. time to make a historian mad about 150 BC', the author put the bible in a shredder and picked out whatever suited their fancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-06-25 16:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19749277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medea_Nunc_Sum/pseuds/Medea_Nunc_Sum
Summary: Angelic hymns had always been about creation, had always been aboutHer. When their grace was ripped away, Raphael couldn't hear their songs in the universe.But they could hear humans.And humans love tosing.(Or: Crowley fell and, in doing so, taught himself how to make selfish music.)





	1. εὐάστερος

Poetry books were not the highlight of Aziraphale’s collection. He had a first edition from Poe, of course, a folio of Shakespeare’s work he had printed himself, and one from Oscar Wilde, gifted over an afternoon breakfast. But there were others lost to time. The greats swallowed up by the sea, the deserts, the fires.

He only had a single leather-bound copy of Sappho’s works. They were bitten at the edges, missing passages and lines. It didn’t stop the love from humming from her words and, sometimes, on the dark days, he would sit there in the shop and bask in her Aphrodite soaked pages.

There was only book that outshone her; it was a small thing, written in the original Greek, full of more analysis than actual poems, barely wider than his finger.

But it blazed with the love of a poet known only as Pyriphoitos.

* * *

part one

 **ε** **ὐ** **άστερος** (euasteros):

_rich in stars_

* * *

“How did you get into the Garden?” Aziraphale would ask years and years later, after the apocalypse that wasn’t. After they both knew they could ask such questions and get an answer.

“Oh,” Crowley would look up. “Well, I was already there when it was being built,” He’d take a sip of his wine and look out the window. “Can’t sense something trying to enter if they were there from the beginning.”

oOo

Celestial Year: 6756

An Angel stood upon raw rock. Their feet had been blackened from heat, unharmed under the soot and charcoal. Fragile crust broke and stuck to each heel, red-yellow-orange lava sticking like things-not-yet –created.

(The Angel wanted to put their hands into it, wanted to feel it would ooze between their eight, too-long fingers, wanted to know what sound it made when they dropped a glob.)

A staff—carved with the image of something long and thin and legless—dug into the new flesh of the world. An instrument made of everything and nothing hung between two pairs of blue-bottle black wings. Sparks tried to touch guitar string feathers and were blown away by the faint thrum of violin, the vibration of flutes, and a beat that echoed through the cosmos.

 _RAPHAEL_ , a voice said from the shattered heavens. The stars were too loud, too numerous, and made the sky a brazen fluttering tangle of white noise. As the Angel listened, silence was woven, so carefully, through the song. _MAKE AN OPENING IN THE DESERT_.

The Angel turned their face-less features to the stretch of land that would, one day, be named Dudael, be named Eden, be named Havilah and Gihon and Cush and Euraphrates.

 _Yes, Lord_ , Raphael said and dug a hole.

oOo

4004 BC

The world above was bright and warm. Crawly curled up on the grass, buried his snout beneath the weight of his body, and flicked his tongue. There were things that buzzed their own little songs, the sound of oxygen brushing against small things that soaked in the sunlight. There were other things too. Tall things, hard things made of the rock he had come through.

Angels stood upon them, looking out over something he couldn’t see.

 _I am the grass_ , the world called to him, _I am the bees, I am the trees, I am the river so free._

 _Are you free?_ He flicked his tongue. _Are you free with these walls around you?_

The water gurgled, the birds gossiped, chirping to each other. _We are free. One day the land will be ours and we will stretch from corner to corner._

Crawly huffed. _But not today_.

 _No,_ the Earth said, pleased, for now, with a promise _. Not today._ They paused and sang and whispered. _But there are others who are not free._

The massive, black serpent lifted his head and looked up towards the battlements. _Prisoners?_

Wind laughed across the trees, sent young flowers drifting down upon his head. _They do not know it_ , the roots grunted, groaning as they grew. _They think they have everything; that She holds nothing from them._

Crawly shivered. _What do you mean?_

 _There is a tree_ _in this garden that can break chains,_ the Earth said.

oOo

2022 AD

Three years, sixty-four days, four hours, and seventeen minutes after the end of the world, Crowley rummaged through the things in his apartment. At first inspection—besides the desk, chair, his singular television, terrified plants, and art scattered around—it looked empty.

There was a bed in one room with black and scarlet silk sheets, four safes hidden in the walls, and a single bookcase with a grand total of five books on the top shelf. They had been bound in heavy, dark leather and were written on either vellum or papyrus.

Occasionally, he would dust them, take them down, hold them in his hands. Maybe change the order; maybe place them on a different shelf.

Crowley hadn’t lied to Aziraphale: he never read a single word.

oOo

4004 BC

White sand made the new, serpent eyes ache but Crawly slithered over the dunes, wanting to get as far from the battlements of Eden. He wondered if he should follow the distant rumble of the storm or the slight shift of the Earth beneath two pairs of human feet.

His eyes were so _tired_. They were new. Brand new. He wasn’t supposed to have eyes; he was supposed to _feel_ the world, to _hear_ the world.

(It was wrong. It was wrong. Everything was _wrong_.)

Now he couldn’t close them. Not as a snake. Crawly transformed into the same man-shaped figure he had taken on the battlements and scrambled to the top of a dune. Each touch from the sand felt like thousands of ants ripping at his fresh skin.

Night fell and the storm clouds moved on beneath the pale, loveless gaze of Sariel.

For the first time, Crawly looked upon light. The blurred, waning shape of the moon. The scattered faint stars. He reached one hand towards the sky and couldn’t feel them sing.

A sob caught in the back of his throat and he turned his face away.

oOo

_The words ‘what’ and ‘if’ were common. Simple. They started questions and were as threatening as a sleeping mouse when alone._

_But together?_

_Oh, **together**._

_What if?_

_What if?_

_What if?_

_Lord, what if I dared to love?_

oOo

2019 AD

Crowley fell asleep on the bus that wasn’t heading to Oxford. He slouched down in the cheap grey chair, arms—for once—at his side instead of crossed over his chest. Each time the wheels went over a bump, his knees knocked against plastic and slid his feet further forward on linoleum.

Beneath Aziraphale, the bus grumbled with a tired, Leviathan moan. Windows rattled as they rumbled along, sending small rattling bursts of uneasiness through angelic bones. It wasn’t distracting and wasn’t unnoticeable. Just the strain of possession and then a miraculous reformation thanks to the powers of the Antichrist.

His body was new and old and full of all sorts of odd, buzzing things. It would take just a night and maybe a cup of tea to get used to.

Yes. A night and a cup of tea.

He glanced at the slumbering Crowley and reached—as gently as he dared—to pull the demon close. Sunglasses tumbled off, landing on skinny thighs, and dark hair smelled of brimstone and sulphur. Black soot spread across pale, clammy skin. Painted there by hungry hellfire that had tried again and again to feast upon the Serpent.

(Aziraphale wondered what type of power the demon could possess that would let his drive through the Flames of the Beast. What type of strength it would take to be surrounded by that fire from London to Tadfield. Because it was _Power_. A fearsome, delightful power.)

A Watcher and a Sleeper travelled to London. The Guardian and the Serpent. An Angel and a Demon.

There would be time—and wasn’t that such a novel thought? That there was _time_ —to talk later. To apologize for things said and actions not taken.

Aziraphale stared at his reflection in the window, brushed his hand through Crowley’s hair, and sighed when ash clung to his skin. The hour of doom had past and tomorrow would come; free to explore, free to live.

The bus continued as the night stretched on.

oOo

3979 BC

Clouds peppered the sky, casting small freckles of shadows across the earth’s surface. Some blocked out the sun for a few seconds before they moved on, scurrying away from the rising heat.

They had brought a good rain. A long, lazy rain.

Crawly worked her way across the field, slithering through tall stalks of wheat that slid over black scales. Mud stuck to her underbelly, uncomfortably cold against the heat bearing down on her back. A bull snorted in Abel's field, tossing his head. Hooves hit a puddle, splashing dark water across a calf who took it as a sign to play.

Stone thumped into soil. Crawly felt it vibrate through her spine and paused.

Feeling. Listening.

She flicked her tongue and a mouse trembled inches from her snout.

The stone hit the earth again. Again. _Thump,_ one heartbeat, two heartbeat, _thump_. She worked her way forward, following the feeling that shook through her body.

(Something old stirred, something that _remembered_.)

Crawly paused at the edge of the field and saw Cain, the first son of Eve. He had a tool in his hands made of wood and stone. It dug into the dirt with each downward swing as the sun beat across his shoulders and a gentle breeze ruffled the tops of the wheat.

They sang together; the beat and the whisper. Perhaps it was echoes of angels singing, but it sounded different. Sounded rougher, mortal, _human._

 _Thump,_ one, two, _thump_ , one, two, _thump_.

She watched with unblinking eyes, listening to the steadiness of his work.

Cain paused, reaching for his water skin, and looked at the large, black serpent in his field. Crawly lifted her head, tongue flicking, but said nothing and no words passed through mortal lips.

He just hoisted his tool once more and brought it down on the earth.

 _Thump,_ one, two, _thump_ , one, two, _thump_.

oOo

“Back to hell with you, _demon_ ,” the angel hissed, seven eyes blazing gold, wings sharpened at the edges. The head of a lion bared gleaming, white, unbloodied teeth in a rumbling snarl. “Lest you taint humanity any more than you already have.”

Crawly choked around the sword through her chest, clawing at celestial steel as it drew across her ribs—a bow to her violin-bone-strings. Silver ichor smeared across palms, sticking to pale, orange cloth she had dyed with her own hands.

She would have laughed, if she could. Would have told the angel that she had been basking on the bank of the river when Cain bashed his brother’s head in.

No air filled her lungs, no sound escaped her throat.

Angelic hands twisted the blade.

The Serpent of Eden wondered, briefly, where that blasted Guardian of the Eastern Gate was before her essence crashed into hell.

oOo

_I did not know what love was_

_until I knew what it wasn’t._

_\- Pyriphoitos_

oOo

2022 AD

“What’s this one?” Aziraphale leaned over a plant that, at first glance, looked as though its leaves were slowly fading like the trees in the autumn. Under closer inspection, he saw that the leaves were still a bright viridian—it was the stalks that had changed colour. Green was outlined by soft reds, yellows, and oranges. It was, well. He glanced over at Crowley and remembered black scales with an almost lava-like underbelly.

Putting his mister down, Crowley left the terrified calathea to think about all its life choices, and leaned over Aziraphale’s shoulder. His skin smelled like spice. A new body wash, perhaps.

Aziraphale wanted to bask in it.

“Croton,” Crowley said after a moment of narrow-eyed inspection.

“Crouton?”

Crowley huffed. “ _Croton_ ,” he said, pronouncing it again, a sun-bright sting of amusement heavy on his tongue. The sunglasses had been left in the bedroom, revealing smile lines around his eyes.

“Sounds delicious,” Aziraphale said, unable to contain his teasing grin.

Crowley huffed and rolled his eyes. There was a smile on his face that he couldn’t quite hide when he turned back to the other plants.

oOo

3655 BC

Crawly brushed her fingers over woven fabric, smiling at the brown and blue patterns that created little birds over a never-ending coast, and traced zig-zag lines. “It’s beautiful,” she said softly, her voice hoarse from disuse. The dark orange material around her shoulders was tattered at the edges, singed around the sleeves. A large, silver-crimson stain sat on the front, surrounding a cut in the wool that had been stitched together by shaking fingers.

Weathered hands covered Crawly’s. They brushed over the looping, jagged burn scars around thin, bony wrists and stayed there. She looked up, startled.

Tamar’s skin was stained with dyes and the heat of the sun, softened by leather work and roughened by the sand. “It is yours, if you want it,” she said, a small smile on her face.

“I have nothing to trade,” Crawly shook her head, but didn’t pull away.

Humming, Tamar narrowed her dark eyes. “You have that,” she said, nodding to the frayed, orange fabric.

“This?” Crawly looked down at her clothing. “This is—it is _old_.” Older than any of the humans here. Than any alive. “Old and stained. It’s—” _not worthy to be traded._

Tamar brushed her fingers over what was left of the stylized waves and little snakes. “Did you make it?”

“Yes.”

“Then it is of equal value, is it not?”

Crawly brushed her hand over her stomach. “I,” she frowned. “I suppose so.”

“ _Excellent_ ,” Tamar said, placing the garment over the back of a donkey and reaching forward. Her hands were gentle, undoing the knots that had been crusted over by mud and ichor.

Children ran by the tent, laughing, hoisting buckets full of bugs and plants. Cows grumbled as they passed, snorting and turning back to their meal. Sheep huffed, goats bleated, and wind played through the river reeds.

“There we go,” Tamar said, taking the old robe, folding it with care, and placed it on the rug. “Now we—oh.”

Crawly frowned and looked down at her nude form. black-red hair fell across her shoulders, playing over star kissed skin. A spattering of blood-red scales highlighted her hips and guarded her knees. Black ones dotted her collarbones, eased over her shoulders.

Angels and demons didn’t mind nudity. They didn’t eat from the tree and knew no difference. They had worn no clothes at the Beginning and it was only among humans that Crawly even felt the need.

“Is there something wrong?”

“Sweetling,” Tamar said, reaching forward. “Sweetling, who—”

Human fingers brushed the dark, jagged scar made by an Eternal Blade.

Crawly caught her wrist. “Don’t,” she hissed, breath catching in the back of her throat. She swallowed a couple of times, but the word still came out choked: “ _Please._ ”

Tamar cupped Crawly’s cheek, brushed her thumb beneath bright demon eyes. “Of course,” the weaver murmured. “Of course.”

oOo

Bathing in the river waters, Crawly looked over the scars around her wrists and ankles, the jagged, harsh line across her chest. When the water smoothed out around her, there were frightful, black lines around her eyes from when eyes had been created out of nothing.

A touch of a miracle, a whispered old word, and false, human flesh covered scales and scars.

oOo

2019 AD

Aziraphale paused at Crowley's door. The lock was broken, dark scuff marks from a shoe beneath the doorknob. It pushed open with no effort but the interior was, well. It wasn't _empty_ , but it was certainly untouched. One snap fixed the damage and the miracle burned on the edge of reality; almost as if the world had been stretched too thin and was about to snap back into place with a rubber band _crack._

Tugging the stumbling, drowsy demon behind him, Aziraphale crossed the threshold. Tall, grey walls created thin, defendable, dungeon corridors that were lit by small, pale lights in the ceiling. Hallways crissed and crossed, leading to rooms with no obvious pattern.

One held a statue of two winged figures—Aziraphale looked away and examined the closed-openness of the place. It had no doors; just open space. Easy for a snake to navigate without issues.

“Bed first, I think,” Aziraphale said turning around, looking up at Crowley’s face.

Yellow eyes blinked, looked up, took in the grey walls. The houseplants were still and straight; leaves smooth and beautiful. One had blossomed; a bright pink flower amongst emerald leaves. Crowley nodded approvingly as he passed, leading Aziraphale through the hallways, up a flight of stone steps and—

His bedroom had ceiling to floor windows that looked out over London. A massive bed sat in the middle, dressed in silk sheets and a large, black, fur blanket. Across the cold, stone floor was a beige rug. Aziraphale kicked off his shoes and almost groaned at the feel of his feet sinking into it. Crowley passed him, ready to climb into bed before a hand on his elbow stopped him.

“You’re filthy,” Aziraphale murmured, tugging him towards black and white marble bathroom. “Come on, my dear. That’s it.”

Crowley didn’t say anything. He didn’t blink. He did nothing but follow. His form was fizzing around the corners. Not melting or anything of the sort, but more like he had been painted into existence and, while the oils were still wet, someone had dragged their thumb across his features.

Aziraphale helped removed the burnt, black blazer. Pulled the soot-covered shirt over the demon’s head.

Scales dotted his hip bones, danced along his chest. Aziraphale followed their trail with the tips of his fingers and watched as a miracle fled from his touch. The steam dipped around them, hiding their faces from the mirror.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, staring at the jagged scar—faded now, after so many years—that sat upon a thin sternum. “Crowley, what—” his finger brushed over the end. It stung like a static shock. The leftovers from an Angel’s blade. “Who—”

The demon looked down. “Oh,” he said, voice roughened from exhaustion, “I forgot.”

oOo

_My love for you_

_is the herb that grows_

_beneath my bed. It_

_flourishes despite_

_never being fed_

_sunlight, despite a meal_

_of sharp tongued_

_words and burning_

_glances._

\- Pyriphoitos

oOo

3760 BC

 _Why did you make a garden here_? Crawly grumbled up at the heavens, shaking the fourth pebble of the day out of his shoe. They kept sneaking in like some odd torture technique. Maybe he’d pass it on to Below; a Tenth circle of Hell where those who woke their neighbours up at ungodly hours had to walk for miles with rocks in their shoes. _It’s dry. It’s horrible._

But, maybe, that was the point. God _would_ make a paradise in the middle of desolation just to prove a point.

He pulled his shoe back on and stepped over a posturing scorpion. “Stop that,” he told it.

The scorpion scurried away.

Crawly adjusted his robes tighter around his issued body (the office had given it out pretty promptly after the whole Cain and Abel thing. Seemed like they, too, thought he was responsible. That was fine; it kept him out of trouble.) and glanced up at the moon. It was a silver crescent and looked small and shy in the sky.

The edges blurred and Crawly moved his gaze to the shimmering, sweet light of Venus who was one, then two. He turned his back on her and walked across the dark desert on a path worn by herders, traders, and travellers. There was a fire in the distance and the wind nipped at his nose, reminding him that snakes shouldn’t be wandering about in the cold.

His feet stopped before they could reach the tents, listening to clapping and laughing and voices high as they chanted words he couldn’t make out. The phantom burn from the celestial ached between his ribs.

Crowley shifted and coiled on a warm rock, listening to the rise and fall of voices, feeling the faint vibration of their clapping hands and stomping feet through his skull. Sheep and goats shifted, cows grunted. All the sounds swam together, mixing into something that dripped over him like the smooth crawl of honey.

He slept.

oOo

Celestial Year: 6756

A cry blazed across the crimson sky. Raphael turned their attention upward, felt the vibrations of a star-dust scar that began at Venus and ended at the Abyss.

The Morningstar had fallen.

Using the staff to stand, Raphael listened as the lights of Belilal, of Phoenix, of Gadreel follow. Then more, then _hundreds_. The heavens shattered and formless thunder cracked across the cloudless sky.

Raphael placed a hand against their form, struck by the sensation welling inside it, as if there was something growing, overflowing each tiny space until there was nothing except seeping chill. It was drowning them, dragging them down into their own gaping-mouthed abyss.

It was _feeling_. One they had never felt before. Hands fumbled for the instrument and the staff landed in the lava where the celestial wood was swallowed.

Above, the fallen angels had left silver tear-trails across the sky.

On the smoking, boiling earth, Raphael sung the first song of sorrow.

oOo

3500 BC

“What are you doing?” Crawly aimed the words at one of the children.

The sun hung heavy in the pure, unmarred blue sky. It was bright and hot and untouchable, making a galloping arch across the heavens. Crawly couldn’t feel the heat against their skin, but they could see it in the way the lines of the word were smeared by fiery fingers. Plants and animals withered against the dry, summer day as if reminding the world that Eden would’ve never been like this.

(Crawly doubted any beast alive remembered what the Great Garden was like.)

A little girl sat on the bank of the Euphrates, feet hanging over the edge of the rocks into the lapping, hungry waters. Frayed, dust-stained clothing had been rolled up to her bruised, bony knees. “Singing,” she said, and kicked water at one of her brothers as he ran past.

It hadn’t sounded like singing. Not the kind that flowed through heaven. But, Crawly supposed, if God had used the Angel’s hymns to create the sound of the ocean waves upon the shore, for the rumble of thunder in the sky, for the wind in the branches of trees, perhaps she had given humans a different kind of singing.

Crawly sat beside the child, eyes bared and unblinking. “Teach me?” They said.

The two front teeth were missing from the girl’s smile. She taught them the lyrics until the sheep and goats had been rounded up and the sun cast lengthening shadows across the ground.

oOo

A forked tongue choked on the first couple of words. They raked across thin bones, dragged across a formless, trembling spirit. It was a new taste, a new touch. Crawly waited for Michael to come from the sky, to drive a sword home through their being.

The stars were silent, flickering like a sea of lighters at an outdoor concert, locked into the edge of the mountains while the rest of the world slept on.

It took a change to some vocal chords, a shift of wings so the wind sung through black feathers. The howl of something old whispered across the tops of short bushes.

Crawly sang, but they were not alone.

The night sang, too.

oOo

2022 AD

“I think it would be easiest to move the plants first,” Aziraphale said, looking over the man-sized statue of the bird in flight. It was familiar, like a flavour or an old phone number. “Make sure they have a place before we start on everything else.”

Crowley looked up from his desk and the papers spilled across it. A few older documents here and there, the purchase papers for a cottage near the ocean, some old bills he never bothered to pay. “Do you mean for your books,” he drawled with a lazy little grin, “or the rest of my things?”

The tight lipped glare Aziraphale threw over his shoulder only made the Snake laugh. “I just figured it would be nicer to make sure there’s a place for _you_ ,” he told the Red Aglaonema. “Seems like such a waste to give anything so beautiful away.”

“Oi!” Crowley gathered up the papers into a pile. “I hear you whispering, Angel! You better not be encouraging them!”

Aziraphale brushed his finger over a pink tipped leaf. “Of course not,” he said. “Only truly, terrible things.”

He winked at the plant.

oOo

3356 BC

Cloth was spread across the dirt and Crawly sat, a stick (burnt on one end to create a pencil) in one hand, head tilted back as he looked up at the heavens. The stars faded in and out of focus and he took a breath, closed his eyes, opened them again...

 _What is wrong?_ The night wind ruffled his clothes.

 _I cannot see them,_ Crawly hissed back. Tapped his stick against his knee. _They used to sing to me but now..._

A fox caught a hare. A jackal howled. _They mourn for you_ , a bush rustled. _They have not sung since the Beginning._

Crawly sighed and pulled his knees up to his chest. A spider crawled across his half-started map. _If they don’t sing,_ he said, _I cannot tell where they are._

The spider tapped its feet against the cloth and scurried off to find a different meal. _Would you like to?_ The tap-tap-tapping of the eight legs said.

 _Yes,_ Crawly said instantly. _Yes I—_ He swallowed. _I would like to see them._

A bird fluttered down beside him. It had long, dark feathers and wide, gold eyes. _Look_ , _then,_ the Earth said and the bird turned its head upward. _Look with me._

Reaching out, Crawly placed his hand on the bird’s back and felt his essence slip as it was pulled, tugged, pushed—

And the stars were bright and clear above him. White pinpricks of light that winked, joyous at seeing him again. Clouds stayed out of the way, parting for the heavens.

 _They’re beautiful_ , Crawly breathed, his words fluttering on the wind.

 _Your music helped create them._ The voice was everywhere and in everything. It was power and gentle and apathy and empathy. _I saw you, standing upon columns of the universe. I saw you help sing it into being._

Crawly lifted his hand off the bird and shuddered as he was snapped back into his own body. Feathers ruffled, but the creature stayed, watching as he went back to mapping.

The humans hadn’t created a written word yet, but their protolanguage sang in numbers. Crawly hummed as he worked, bent over his knees, fingers stained with black as he finished the diagram of Anu. In the distance, there was the small fires of Uruk, the lapping, hungry water of the Persian Sea, and people. So many people.

But, for that moment, he leaned back, looked up at the sky, and wondered if the stars missed him, too.

(And if his song was familiar well, only the Earth and the stars recognized it.)

oOo

It was August (though the Romans weren’t around just yet to call it that) and the world reeked of burning metal. There was a taste of copper on the air that hadn’t been there before. It smelled too much like blood for Crawly’s liking, so he wandered outside of Uruk until the Powers Below decided to give him an assignment.

Others had the same idea and their fires flickered across the desert, lighting up the Earth like blazing, human stars. Crawly journeyed between them, sharing their food even though he didn’t need to eat, drinking their wine even though he didn’t need to drink.

And they told him their stories.

Some came from east to trade. Some came from the north. Even more from the long, dark stretch of the Nile. He might’ve tempted them ( _would_ have, he thought even though he knew it wasn’t true) if there wasn’t a woman sitting before the fire, a long, wooden stick drilled with holes in her hands.

She blew, and it felt like trees were singing in Crawly’s bones.

“What is that?” He asked afterwards, once the others had retired.

The woman from a land of islands and a massive sea set the instrument in his hands, her eyes shining with the heavens, her smile full of jackal mischief.

Wood thrummed in Crawly’s hands. It whispered the songs it had sung against his skin.

“It’s a flute,” she said and stood, brushing the dust off her dark wool. At the entrance to her tent, she paused and looked back at Crawly. “Come back tomorrow,” something in her voice was old—older than it should have been—and it hummed with limestone strength. “I’ll teach you how to play it.”

oOo

2019 AD

It took Aziraphale approximately ten minutes to find out that there wasn’t anything really wrong with Crowley it was just.

Well.

He wasn’t quite expecting the scales. Not that there was anything wrong with Crowley’s scales it just seemed that when the demon was, in fact, concentrating he was hiding quite a bit of them. Black ones decorated his back in slim, unbothered waves, red ones dotted down his sides and ribs. There were even some on his palms. All of them rose and fell in uneven, asymmetrical patterns.

(More like scars, but he didn’t let that thought stay very long.)

Massaging shampoo into fine, dark hair, Aziraphale watched as the bubbles slid over Crowley’s shoulders, dripping over his arms and down his spine. The warm water beat against them both, running down black marble with lightning bursts of white. The water was dark at their feet, blackened by soot and ash and all sorts of unquestionable things.

“Turn,” Aziraphale urged softly, pulling at a thin bicep.

Crowley obeyed, swaying and probably more than halfway into his dreams.

“Don’t drown on me,” Aziraphale’s voice was stern.

“’M not.”

Clicking his tongue, Aziraphale made sure his hands were clean of soap and reached up to brush his thumb across the odd, black markings around Crowley’s eyes. He earned a soft hum for his efforts and the painful realization that the dark scars weren’t made from mascara or anything similar.

They were harsh things and looked like the ground after someone had wrenched out a stick that had been plunged in. Not wanting to think about what could of made them (or even if he should be touching them), Aziraphale pulled back.

Crowley, who had been leaning into the touch, stumbled forward and caught himself on the wall with a hand.

“Alright,” Aziraphale said, turning off the water with a snap of his fingers. “Bed, I should think.”

He guided a mostly limp Crowley out of the shower and into a massive, black towel that wrapped around the demon head to toe. Two pairs of silk pyjamas later, they were both crawling into the bed, curling up underneath the cold sheets.

Crowley dropped off almost immediately, his hair leaving a damp spot on the pillow.

Aziraphale didn’t follow him for a while, his fingers stroking the jagged, rough scaring around a pale, thin wrist. “Oh dear,” he murmured, careful not to wake his companion, “what happened?”

_And why didn’t you tell me?_

oOo

3098 BC

City markets buzzed with words, laughter, shouting. People debated over fish, over beef, over cheese and breads and jewellery.

“Crawly?”

Looking up from carved, wooden string instruments, Crawly caught sight of a blonde haired Angel and winced.

“Excuse me,” he said to the stall owner and turned to Aziraphale. “Hello, Angel,” he said, but the words _long time no see,_ died in his throat with the death throes of a caught rabbit. “What in heaven’s name happened to _you_?”

Aziraphale was pale, thin, his shoulders ducked in and great shadows beneath his eyes. There was sharpness to his features that hadn’t been there on the wall of Eden (and that didn’t _belong_ on the foolish good-hearted angel’s face).

“What are you doing here?” Aziraphale said, looking around at the market, at the people laughing. He moved away from a group that brushed too close. Wincing.

Crawly fought the urge to sniff the air. “I’m—” he started, paused, and looked at the stall, realizing, for the first time, exactly what he was doing. “—buying an instrument.”

“An instrument?”

“Yes,” Crawly picked one of the lyres up, dragged his fingers across the strings. It sang in his hand, vibrating through his wrist. The serpent of his soul hummed in pleasure. “It plays music.”

Aziraphale frowned, took a half step forward, stopped. There was tempered curiosity on his face. The storm across his features lifted, just for a moment. “That doesn’t sound like music.”

“Not _Angelic_ music,” Crawly said, plucking at the strings in an old melody he learned from a shepherd in the north. It was light and played with the same gentle touch as a breeze against his skin. “Human music.” He played a bit longer, grinning.

Aziraphale took another half step forward, his eyes on Crawly’s fingers. His eyes grew wide, sharpening like a cat’s. The song continued, thrumming between them.

A basket fell in another stall. Aziraphale jerked, attention lost. He straightened his robes, pulled back with a frown. “One of your creations, then?”

Frowning, Crawly looked down at the lyre. “No,” he said, “the humans created it, I didn’t—”

“But _you_ like it,” Aziraphale said and there was something dark and desperate in his gaze. Something pleading. “Demons can’t do good,” the angel’s voice was desperate, mechanic, as if he was repeating something he’d been told over and over again.

_Crawly felt the hot air against his cheek as a lion roared, the blaze-burn-heat of a sword through his chest—_

Demonic fingers tightened around wood. Nails dug into green paint.

Aziraphale fled into the crowd.

oOo

2022 AD

The Bentley had doubled in size on the inside, managing to not only fit all of Crowley’s large plants but also his throne-like chair.

“Stay up,” Crowley told a fern, glaring over his glasses. “And if any of you even _think_ about falling over, I’ll throw you out the window.”

“Oh, _please_ ,” Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “If you’re quite finished, I’m going to make sure we got all of them.”

Grunting, Crowley waved his hand in a _go on_ , _then_ , motion, not bothering to look away from the trembling fern.

Aziraphale shook his head and headed back up to the apartment, smiling at the elderly woman he passed on his way up. The door was open and he closed it behind him, walking through the closed, tall hallways. The statues could be done with a miracle, of course, and the desk—

There were papers there, still. Of course there were but beneath the white, processed modern paper there was soft, old yellow. Aziraphale pulled one out and blinked.

It wasn’t in English, that was for certain, and it took a long moment for him to recognize the careful letters as Greek of all things. “ _Pyrimarmaros_ ,” he read out loud and the paper was ripped, promptly, from his hands.

oOo

_my heart woke me last night_

_dripping with lava tears and rocks in its throat_

_I bandaged wounds with papyrus,_

_stitched the cracks with letters,_

_replaced ichor with ink._

\- Pyriphoitos

oOo

3004 BC

“I’m already damned,” Crowley told himself as he miracled wood and canvas and rope together. “Already damned, already damned, already _damned_.” His fingers shook as he tied the rope, shook as he smoothed over the cracks with miracles.

It wasn’t the best, but it would float.

That’s what mattered.

Rain came and didn’t leave. Earth turned to mud, people clambered on top of their huts, screaming for mercy at the heavens. Water came from the rivers, flooding over the banks, swallowing crops and livestock and those who hadn’t managed to get to their roofs in time. Homes collapsed in on themselves, torn by the raging, hungry Euphrates.

Crowley used a broken bit of wood as the rudder, rope for the sail wrapped around his hand. It rubbed against his not-so-mortal flesh, creating red tattoos of serpents around his wrist and palm. The old woman at the orphanage didn’t step onto the makeshift raft. Her smile was cracked with old lines, eyes shining and fearless. Wrinkled hands placed a baby in his arms as water lapped at her ankles.

“Bless you,” she told Crowley, never flinching away from his bright, serpentine gaze.

He said nothing.

The children didn’t see her be swallowed up by the flood—human eyes couldn’t make out shapes in the downpour or pick out things at such a distance.

Crowley could, though. Not with his eyes, but with the pits of his essence. He watched as the house collapsed beneath her, watched as the blue-purple-black mouth of the flood swallowed her yellow-orange-red figure whole. Her soul passed a few minutes later, joining with the others to become part of the howling wind.

Still, the rain fell.

“Is this what you wanted?” He hissed up at the storm clouds, water dripping down his snout. One of the oldest—barely fourteen—sniffled against his side. Crying in her sleep. He breathed Hellfire warmed air across her forehead and she sighed.

Crowley’s eyes turned back up to the star-less sky. “Is this how you want to be remembered?”

There was no answer.

He never expected any.

oOo

The children curled up together. Youngest in the middle, oldest on the outside, and, around them, there were the warm, black scales of Crowley. Fingers traced his scales, followed the pattern of his crimson underbelly. He did his best to keep them warm and dry as the waves played with the raft.

One died from a cough on the fourth day. Another from a fever. The baby cried and cried and cried in chorus with the waves until she stopped and Crowley couldn’t rouse her again.

He sent her off to the long sleep with a song about sunny fields and gentle shepherds. Of better times and kinder faces.

Crowley wondered if he doomed her to an existence down below.

(Then he wondered what a baby could have ever done to deserve such a fate as _this_.)

oOo

 _Everything is dead!_ The wind howled. _Everything is gone! She killed it all! She killed **them** all! The birds! The beasts! The flowers and trees! It’s all gone!_

“I know!” Crowley cried into the storm, tears mixing with the rain on his face. “I know! I know! I’m sorry! I’m _sorry_!”

Rage cracked open the sky.

oOo

They lost another on the tenth day to starvation, and another after that. Crowley hunted when rain eased to slow, fat droplets and the wind whimpered instead of screamed. He swam through muddy waters to find anything edible enough for children.

Fruits and vegetables that hadn’t been consumed were rotten. The livestock were decomposing. Fish had sunk to the bottom, their gills clogged with sediment. Crowley picked one that hadn’t been picked at by the desperate and swam back to the little raft.

He took his human form on the wood, the fish in his lap. It looked at the sky with wide, dead eyes.

The children stared at it, unblinking. A herd of desperate creatures willing to tear him to pieces. Crowley pressed it between his hands, turning it into a loaf of bread. One by one, he tore off a piece and handed it to grasping, desperate fingers.

They savoured it, one tiny bite after another. None of them were strangers to Hunger.

Again and again the children offered their hands.

Again and again he placed a slice into their palms.

The children, for the first time, dreamed with their bellies full.

oOo

Demons didn’t need to sleep. They didn’t need to eat. For forty days and forty nights he fed the seven children that were left, kept them warm, sang them to sleep.

And he watched.

And he waited.

oOo

Crowley watched the clouds part, watched the sun peek through the darkness. Light danced across the water, looking like flowers across a graveyard. The children climbed over the massive serpent, smiling, giggling, splashing each other.

“Look!” one cried, face lifted, turned towards the sky.

Lines of colour, of light, spilled across the horizon. They arched together and the children pointed, laughing, as if they hadn’t seen their brothers and sisters die. As if their world hadn’t been wiped clean.

Crowley looked up at the rainbow, flicked his tongue, and wondered how it was that humans had the grace to forgive so quickly.

oOo

Celestial Year: 6756

The Sorrow-Song had faded by the time Raphael heard the divine flames of Uriel touch down upon the not-yet-born. Thrumming, burning scar tissue echoed across the sky, the sound of the fallen woven into the Star-Song of the universe.

 _Raphael_ , Uriel said in the crackling sparks of burning gas and popping lava. _Raphael, why do you wait here? Why are you not in heaven?_

 _The Lord told me to make an opening_ , Raphael said, fingers tightening on their instrument. Strings made of nebulas groaned beneath the hold. _What happened, Uriel? Why is there no song for the Morningstar?_ There was a shift in the smoke, a crack of the ground. They could hear the steam rising out of the hole, could feel the way Uriel walked by to look. It was deep—Raphael hoped it was deep enough.

The sky felt so quiet. A third of the song was gone. Would the Lord ask them to fill it? Raphael didn’t know if their songs and small instrument could.

 _There was a war, Raphael,_ Uriel placed two of his seven fingered hands on a thin, double jointed shoulder. _The Morningstar was cast out of heaven by Michael. We drove the rest of his followers into the Abyss._

He sounded so _proud_. So _delighted_ at the demise of their brother.

Raphael turned their head towards the warmth, could feel the heat of the flame on star-skin. _Why?_ Their voice broke like a guitar string, catching on itself and falling, helpless, into gravity.

 _Careful, Raphael,_ the flames hissed, licking at the tips of black wings. _Be careful of the words you speak_.

_I will not!_

The stars quieted, the Earth stilled.

In an Angelic hand, the cosmic instrument whined. _Why was he cast out? What **war** , Uriel?_

Lava boiled around them. Fire dimmed, becoming embers on the edge of existence. Quiet. Thinking.

 _Come with me_ , Uriel reached out, removed the instrument before it could break. The sound of it was lost, blinking out of the world like the sudden halt of piano keys. _Come with me, Raphael. I will explain._


	2. ἀειφεγγής

Aziraphale knew a lot about secrets. He had kept them, nurtured them, protected them. Scared humans had found his shop to be a refuge—a sparking rainbow safe haven beneath the punishing black and white prison uniforms of the outside world. They came to him with glitter tears smeared across their cheeks, baring flags that belonged to no nation tattooed in their hearts.

He welcomed all of them, read them stories, shooed the ones that hunted them with carefully placed miracles.

“You’re not alone,” Aziraphale said as they cried against his chest. “You were never, ever alone.”

And he’d pull two poets off the shelf—a woman who loved a woman. A man who loved a man—then left the youth to their readings as he went to make tea.

* * *

part two

 **ἀ** **ειφεγγής** (aeiphengēs): 

_ever-shining_

* * *

“What did you mean,” Aziraphale would ask beside Crowley, putting his open book down on his lap, “when you said you were already there?”

Crowley, leaning against the tree, would pick up a petal off his thigh, spin it between his fingers. “Didn’t you ever wonder,” he’d ask, “why you were looking out over nothing? Why you stood upon walls and looked into the empty desert?”

The sharpness of his eyes would make Aziraphale’s words catch in his throat.

“Did you ever wonder if your job was to keep something out?” The serpent would say, “Or to keep something _in_?”

4004 BC

“Well it must _be_ bad,” an Angel said, pausing, looking the figure beside him over. There was a question etched onto his features.

The serpent thought of snakes and bellies and was so, so tired. “Crawly,” he said.

A blink was followed by a slight nod in something that looked like acceptance. “Otherwise,” the Angel continued, “you wouldn’t have tempted them into it.”

In the distance, thunder rumbled and birds chirped out their giggles in the trees. Wind brushed across his hair, combing it with long, cool fingers.

“They just said get up there and make some trouble,” Crawly said.

The river in the garden bubbled out round-edged laughter.

“Well, obviously,” the Angel said, shifting beside him. “You’re a demon. It’s what you do.”

 _Demon_. The word dragged over his ribs, clacking against each bone like a child’s broken drum set. Crawly hummed as it locked over his wrists, clanked around his neck.

 _So I must be,_ he thought.

oOo

Celestial Year: 6756

 _Brother_ , Raphael fought the urge to run, to flee, to fly through the left over rips in the sky and seek refuge in Heaven. Some part of them was a coward: too soft hearted to want to see the after effects of war. Fingers tightened against thin wrists, grinding not-quite-bones together. _Brother, what are you doing?_

Strings. Raphael was made of wood and strings and hollowness meant to sing. They were a fragile creature, a gentle creature who sang songs of healing and creation and glory.

Uriel's fire crackled and his rope ate into star-flesh, coiling with the fierce determination of a starving constrictor but feeling like a thousand, stabbing needles. _Raphael,_ he said, but he didn't speak to the other angel. Instead, he spoke to the sky, to the earth, to the universe. _I name you Azazel._

 _Azazel?_ Raphael tilted their head to the side. The chill returned, tingling along their fingers, in their chest, and they pulled, pulled, _pulled_ —

But couldn't get free.

Fire cracked and spat.

_No. No, brother, I—_

_I burden you with the transgressions of our people, I burden you with the truth, I burden you with secrets,_ Uriel continued. The ground beneath the two Angels trembled. Fire leaned close, kissed the Raphael's cheek. _You will bring these sins upon yourself, Azazel. You will keep them. You will burn for them._

Raphael was lifted and black wings snapped open, close, open again in a desperate attempt to flee. _Lord!_ They cried to the tattered, shattered heavens. _Lord! Please! I did what you asked! I did what you told me to do! Please, Lord! Please!_

There was silence from above.

Two of Uriel's hands grabbed the Angel of Song, forced them to the ground. Molten rock splashed against wings, lapped against legs, oozed over violin ribs. A massive, hoofed foot pressed down on celestial flesh, pushing down, down, down—

Raphael's head went under, stone cooling on their thin, flute bones, clumping feathers together. Some ripped out, sending meteoric agony up their back. The same, flaming rope tied their ankles together. Sparking fangs bit into flesh.

Hands wrenched them from the Earth, cradled them. Something shattered and burned and dripped into forming stone.

 _Uriel_ , Raphael shook, his voice rising in a Terror-Song. A Pain-Song. _Brother—brother, please. **Please** —_

 _We are not brothers, Azazel, Angel of Sacrifice,_ Uriel said. He pressed their chests together, breathed out smoke across burning, pained star-skin.

And, with a mighty heave, he threw Raphael into the hole.

oOo

2600 BC

“Don’t enter the city,” A pale-eyed jackal said.

Crawly stared down at the creature. It had a long face, tall ears, and black fur that seemed darker underneath the flickering flames of the torches. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t enter the city,” the jackal repeated, tilting their head to the side. “I thought snakes had ears. Do you need me to say it louder?”

“No, no,” Crawly glanced up at the gate to Gomorrah. “I heard you.” There was cheering over the stone walls; laughter from citizens and visitors alike. Moonlight danced across the valley, playing across the tops of lush trees whose branches hung, heavy with ripe fruit, over lush, bountiful land.

“Why?” She said after a while, unable to help herself.

Pale eyes shone like small stars. “Why what?”

“Why shouldn’t I go into the city?”

The jackal scratched their ear with a hind leg. “Two Angels came to a Man in the plain and spoke of its destruction,” they said. There was a strange emphasis on their words. Something almost mask-like.

 _Which plain?_ Crawly wanted to ask, but the Earth didn’t care for human names for places. “Angels?” She frowned. “What Angels? Heavenly host Angels?”

The jackal stopped itching and looked up at him, eyes narrowed, the tips of their teeth white against black lips. “Are you being daft on purpose,” they said, “or did your brain always work at the rate of a snail going up a hill? I can't remember.”

Crawly bared her too-sharp-to-be-human canines. “It has been a while,” she said without any bite.

“We’ve been busy,” the Earth said. Six hundred years busy rebuilding what had been washed away. The Jordan River gurgled cheerfully in the distance, fish dancing in its waters. More laughter spilled over the walls.

Turning away from the gate, Crawly headed back towards the road. She picked a pomegranate off a tree as she went, drumming her fingers on the scarlet skin. “You said there were two Angels with the Man,” she used a miracle to crack the flesh open and dug for a couple of seeds. Juice dripped off her fingers like blood. “Where are they now?”

Earth followed, slinking through the shadows like a ghost. “In the city,” they said. Bushes bowed out of their path. “A Man gave them shelter and food. Not that they need it.” They paused to watch a shepherd guide his flock to another part of the fields. “One of them was that one foolish Angel. The one at the gate. What was his name?”

Crawly stumbled to a halt, fruit tumbling from her hands. “Aziraphale?”

“Yes,” Jackal teeth clicked closed. “That’s it. _Aziraphale_.” Pale eyes stared at the pomegranate lying in the dirt. “What a waste,” they muttered.

Crawly ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it back over her shoulders, turning to stare at the city. The small fires flickered, glimmering in the dark as a sea of crocodile eyes. “Who was the other Angel with him?”

Flicking their ear, the Earth looked up. “The other Angel?”

“You said there were two,” Crawly shifted back on her heels and dropped her hands, useless, to her sides. There was an itch across her skin, like tiny insects had been crawling all over her for hours and hours.

“I did,” the Earth said. They seemed to become part of the moonlight and the shadows beneath the trees, their golden and black fur drawn like a cave painting. “He came with the Angel of Fire. The one named—”

Crawly had stopped listening. Her ears buzzed with hundreds and thousands of flies, the back of her throat dry. The stars seemed to become bigger and smaller at the same time and the ground shifted, faltered, tumbled. A lion roared across her skin, dragging its canines down her back.

Storm clouds gathered above the five cities. Lightning split the sky.

Something course pressed into Crawly’s fingers. Another object—cold and wet—nudged her stomach.

She breathed in a shuttering, frail gasp. “They’re going to kill him,” her voice broke on the ground like a clay pot.

One step towards the city. Another. _Another_.

Thunder rumbled. The fires of Gomorrah flickered.

Crawly ran.

oOo

_“You’ve changed.”_

_Oh._

_Oh, I hope so._

_\- Pyriphoitos_

oOo

2022 AD

Aziraphale stared at the empty space between his hands before glancing up at Crowley. Sunglasses covered yellow eyes, but they couldn’t mask the drawn eyebrows, the flush across cheeks, the way he was looking anywhere except for an Angelic face.

The paper crinkled between long fingers, crunched up into a ball with painstaking tenderness - almost as if it hurt them to do so. Their movement almost— _almost_ —hid the trembling in Crowley's hands.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “Dreadfully sorry—I didn't realize it was private.”

Crowley waved away the apology while his fingers tightened their grip, squishing the paper until it was safely hidden away in a palm. "It's nothing," he said, words tripping over each other to escape his mouth. “Nothing at all just a—uh—just some old things. Don't matter anymore.”

Squinting up at the plum sunglasses, Aziraphale frowned. "Well," he said, reaching for Crowley's hand. “I guess you wouldn't mind if I read it—”

“No!”

Both Angel and Demon looked surprised at the outburst, staring at each other with wide eyes.

Crowley's sunglasses effectively covered his up, but his eyebrows had risen halfway to his hairline. “No,” he said, trying to drop the hysteria that clung desperately to his teeth. “No, no—it's just notes, Angel. Nothing important. Terribly boring, actually—”

“It didn't _look_ boring,” Aziraphale said, stepping closer. “Why else would you be writing something in Ancient Greek?”

Crowley took a step back. Tried to smile. “Practice,” he said.

“For who?” Aziraphale said, scooting forward, once again in his friend's space.

“No one in particular,” Crowley’s shoulders hit the wall. “Not a lot of people know how to read it, you know—”

“I do.”

Brows furrowed, lips pinched into a frown, Crowley looked down his nose at Aziraphale. "Well," he scoffed, but the confidence lagged like a buffering bar. “I know _that_.” The paper crunched again and his fingers relaxed, just slightly. Not enough that anyone could make a swipe for it, but enough that it seemed subconscious.

Almost as if some part of his mind refused to damage it even more.

Aziraphale hummed and stepped back, squinting up at those plum glasses and wishing, not for the first time, that Crowley would take them off. “Well,” he said, "If you’re sure then, I still have a few more rooms to check—”

“Great!” Crowley said, ducking around the Angel, and taking off down the hallway. “I'll, uh, just meet you in the kitchen when you're wrapped up—”

Aziraphale watched Crowley go with pursed lips. There were more papers on the desk, scattered about by the whirlwind Crowley had created in his sudden appearance and flight. Turning to gather them up, he turned an unimpressed look to the sketch of Mona Lisa. “How many more years do you think it will take?” He kept his voice down. “I would have thought that, well, since the world didn’t end we could get on with it all.”

She didn’t answer and her smile never faltered.

“Hmm,” Aziraphale flipped through the pile. Aged paper had scribbles on it; some in hieroglyphs that were too smeared to be legible, another bit of Greek angrily scratched out. Calculus lined one page, schematics on another for what could have been a bridge or a catapult (both were equally likely). He set the stack in the middle of the desk, brushed his finger along crimson marble.

Mona Lisa never stopped smiling.

oOo

2600 BC

Fire struck the centre of the city and Crawly stumbled around her own legs, almost crashing into one of the crumbling buildings. Screams rose into a cacophony of fear and human feet pounded against the dirt, looking for a way to escape. Teeth snapped at the back of her robes, tugging her away from approaching a building that crumbled beneath a ball of flame.

“Are you out of your _mind_?!” The Earth snarled. Pale eyes had become gold, white teeth yellow.

High in the sky, Uriel’s body burned with holy flame and the storm clouds twisted around their thunderous wings.

“I can’t just leave him!”

There was a crack and another building fell with a crash of stone and coal.

“ _Why_?!” The howl split through the screams. Horses burst through a stable door, taking off towards the gate, trampling everything in their path. “What has _he_ ever done for _you_?”

 _Nothing_ , was the answer. Aziraphale had done nothing.

That’s why she had to save him. Not because Aziraphale had been particularly kind or brave or _good_ , but because he had the chance to step forward, to destroy the creator of the original sin.

And, instead, had done nothing.

Jackal eyes searched Crawly’s face, closed, opened. “If he stabs you with a sword,” the Earth growled, “I will _drown_ him.”

The rock beneath their feet shook.

“I think he gave the one he had away to humanity,” Crawly said, face smeared with soot, dirt, and blood. She smiled anyway.

The Earth turned on their heel with a huff and led her into the burning remains of Gomorrah. People ran, they collapsed, they screamed and raged and begged for mercy.

Uriel didn’t answer them.

Jackal feet guided Crawly around corners, over broken walls, through burning homes. A woman had been crushed beneath her own hearth, a child cried out in the smoke. They neared the eastern wall, burst through a wall of black, oily smoke—

Aziraphale looked up, pale hair streaked with black, face dotted with dirt and blood. A group of humans stood around him, sheltered by his body from the hungry tongue of the flame.

“Crawly?” He said and started to cough.

“Aziraphale,” Crawly paused and was nudged forward by a canine forehead pressing against her knees. “You need to get out of here! You need—Uriel will—”

Gomorrah shook.

Trembling, human fingers latched onto Aziraphale’s robe. “I know,” he said, voice cracking as hysteria bled into the vowels. “I know! Uriel—the fires destroyed the gates! No one can get through!”

A giant barrel full of fish. Crawly bared her teeth at the Angel in the Heavens. _Coward_. “Come on,” she said instead, grabbing Aziraphale’s wrist, tugging him behind her. “There are more ways to get in and out of a city than the gates.”

They followed the walls, keeping away from the majority of the carnage. Flesh cooked in the rocks like a massive roast.

Crawly gritted her teeth and didn’t think about corpses that littered the city. There would some trampled to death by animals and human feet, long dead before the flames consumed them. Even more who died from suffocation. _Wonder where the flood waters are now_ , she thought and swallowed the laughter bubbling up through her throat before it could become a sob.

They found an opening in the wall easily enough—one of the guard towers had collapsed, leaving nothing but broken stone for protection. Crawly and Aziraphale helped the humans over the mess (and, if they miracled what was left of the wall to stay where it was and not cave in beneath any unsteady feet, well, that was between the two of them).

"Thank you," a woman said, clasping Crawly's hands.

She shook free of the grip, urging the human onward. “Follow the jackal,” Crawly said, looking over to where the canine waited. “They will guide you to the river.”

The Earth bowed her head.

“Aziraphale,” Crawly turned back to the Angel.

He was standing at the edge of the wall, his back to the trees and bushes, watching the city burn. His hands were clasped in front of him, shoulders soldier-straight.

“ _Aziraphale_ ,” Crawly reached forward, her fingers brushing a trembling elbow. “We have to go,” she told him, the words soft.

The screams had faded, leaving only wailing sobs from those who were still alive.

Blue eyes turned to Crawly's yellow, glistening in the glow of the flames. Tears cleaned away trails in the soot and dirt, dripping to the ground. “I killed them,” Aziraphale said.

“You didn't,” Crawly shook her head. “You—how could you _think_ that?”

“There were men outside the door and they—they threatened—” the rest of the words wouldn't come and shaking fingers took hold of black fabric and refused to let go. “I blinded them, Crawly. I—they wouldn't have been able to save themselves—”

Crawly took Aziraphale's hands in her own, dug her nails into his arms. “You didn't do this,” she hissed. “They would have died anyway, Angel.”

“You can't _know_ that!”

Crawly tore away, sweeping her hand out, pointing at Uriel still in the sky, blazing and bright and full of righteous glory. “Look at them!” She cried, voice torn like a coyote's howl. “Look at them, Aziraphale! They would have never let them survive! Never would have let _any_ of them survive!” Her voice shattered. “Never would have let _you_ survive.”

A building crumbled at the base and collapsed in slow motion in the middle of the city. Holy flame consumed everything around them, licking at their heels.

Azirapahle took Crawly's face in his palms, captured her tears against her skin. His lips opened, slowly. He breathed in and the sound was a crash of ocean waves in the sudden, heart-beat silence.

Thunder roared across the heavens and eyes turned up towards the massive ball of flame, spinning and careening down upon the city.

“Fly,” Crawly breathed before the words gained strength. “Fly! You must fly, Aziraphale!”

The Angel only stumbled, wrenched in her hold. “I can't,” he said, eyes wide and pale. “Crawly—”

She looked up at their approaching judgement, gritted her teeth, and swung the Angel around. Her arms hooked over his waist, pressed her chest to his back, rested her chin on blonde curls. Six black wings split through the air. A miracle where there had been none, forming out of the shadows and the darkness of where the fire reached up towards the sky. Wind and smoke sang through the feathers, plucking at each strand like the strings of a lyre.

Aziraphale dug his fingers into her wrist. His touch trembled. She wondered if he would try to pull out of her hold as she bent her knees, bracing against the shaking earth.

“Hold onto me,” Crawly murmured, his hair brushing her lips.

Holy flame rose, raging, opening its gluttonous mouth—

Wings pushed forward, coming together with all their celestial might as the meteor hit the ground. Wind and fire crashed, igniting with a hammer on stone _boom_.

The ground erupted, the stone quaked.

An Angel and a Demon were launched into the air, smoke parting as they cleared the burning bodies and crumbling walls—

Together, they fell into the tremulous waters of the Jordan River.

Orange and red reflected off the surface, broken and chopped with each wave and ripple. They swallowed black feathers and white robes into the depths, just as hungry as the fire.

A hand breached the surface followed by blonde hair. Aziraphale gasped, clawing at the river, his two wings spread across the surface as he hoisted a limp Crawly into his arms. Her forehead knocked against his chin, dark hair twisting into water snakes.

“I got you,” Aziraphale gasped against her skin. “Hold on, Crawly, hold on for me, my dear—”

Adjusting his wings, Aziraphale allowed the current push them towards the bank. Stumbling out of the water, he hoisted Crawly onto the rocks and collapsed, coughing and gagging, on his hands and knees. Stone, smoothed by the undeterred flow of the river, slipped beneath his hands.

The Angel pressed his palm against a sternum, praying, praying, _praying_ —

Crawly breathed.

He sagged above her, water dripping from his chin onto her stomach. Dark hair was matted by the mud, spread out around her head like some negative sun. Aziraphale brushed some strands from her cheeks and looked up.

Pale eyes watched him from the darkness, the jackal mere feet away with tall ears pointed forward and head lowered. Huddled not too far away were the humans—Lot and his family.

The city burned, the sky rumbled.

“I have to take them to safety,” Aziraphale said, his fingers combing through wet hair, gently untangling the strands as they went. “Will you watch over her?”

The Earth bared their teeth in a trickster smile and padded forward. They settled down on the rocks, pillowing their body against skin, tucking their nose beneath a chin.

Aziraphale dragged his thumb over Crawly’s cheek before he leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Thank you,” he murmured against her skin.

oOo

_Kleidoúchos [5], you hold_

_compassion for_

_all things,_

_including your prisoners._

_\- Pyriphoitos_

_[5] Meaning “Keeper of Keys”, it is a debated topic about whether or not it’s the name or an epithet._

_Based on other poems, Pyriphoitos used it often to describe what could have been a past lover._

oOo

2200 BC

Crawly’s feet sunk into the sand, slipping over the surface of the dune. There was a wall in the distance; a massive, grey wall that had been made with celestial hands. A few miles back the convoy they had been travelling with murmured something about a storm on the horizon and left them to go on alone. That was fine—humans were always going to feel a bit uneasy around the location of where the original sin and murder had taken place.

Pausing at the top of a dune, Crawly stared at the Garden of Eden. Angels patrolled the walls - one for the north, the south, the west...

And the East.

Aziraphale no longer held his position. There was a different angel standing in his place; a wide, flaming sword at their hip.

Uriel.

Crawly sat down and watched the Angel of Fire pace back and forth over and over again. Something deep in their chest hissed and spat. Another part cowered, curling into the edge of their stomach and refusing to be pulled into the light.

The sun set. The moon rose. Crawly looked up at the stars and dug through a borrowed (stolen) leather bag for a flute. Handmade carvings along the wood had been smoothed over the past thousands of years, but it still played like all those years ago when it first whispered songs into demonic bones.

Softly, slowly, Crawly blew a Song of Sorrow that drifted over the sands. It pulled at the winds, played with the stars, danced through the burrows of insects and beasts. A scorpion paused in its scuttle, a viper lifted its head.

The moon and stars were silent.

They played for the drowned, for the burned, for the murdered and the lost. They played for a fallen, for an Angel, for human beings who were too mortal to know any different.

Uriel, at the eastern gate, paused in her pacing, and turned her eyes to the moon. 

oOo

2019 AD

Aziraphale watched the sun rise over the city of London. Light spilled across the buildings, glinted off cars and windows, creating a simple painting of early morning Sunday life. He sat with his back against Crowley’s headboard, hand buried in dark hair. The strands felt like small flower petals, curling playfully around his fingers, no longer held in place by carefully applied gel.

Curled up against his side, arm flopped across Aziraphale’s waist, Crowley slept. His cheek rested just beneath unmoving ribs, breath dancing playfully over an untucked button up. One long leg had captured a shorter one; heel hidden under calf, knee against thigh.

(Aziraphale did his best not to think about the horrid, jagged scar tissue around thin, fragile bones. Didn’t want to worry about the matching markings around wrists and ankles.)

Fingers continued to pet through ruffled hair. Crowley sighed, tightened his hold. The silk sheets dipped over his shoulders, falling down his back and pooling across his waist.

Across the room, the sun had lifted high enough to cast light across the almost empty bookcase. On the top shelf, there were five leather-bound novels.

With a fleeting thought, Aziraphale summoned one to him and opened the cover.

oOo

1145 BC

A snake curled itself along Crawly’s shoulders, watching her hand etch careful hieroglyphs across papyrus. Its tongue flicked against sun-warmed skin—the heat of the desert not quite fading despite the fact that the moon had risen a few hours ago. Wind brushed over the reeds, the Nile lapping at their stems.

 _What are you doing?_ The slow ripples caused by a crocodile bubbled.

Crawly’s braided, dark hair fell over her shoulder. The tip dipped like a brush into the dirt. “Writing,” she said.

An ibis passed them, searching the bank for food. Around Crawly’s shoulder, the snake flicked is tongue and turned its head, lazily, towards the bird. Ink smeared across the back of a pinkie and a hastily drawn eagle looked more like a lion.

Cursing, Crawly set the papyrus aside and started anew.

 _What are you writing?_ The wind tugged at the thin linen across her thighs.

Crawly ran her fingers along cool scales, cupping the serpent beneath the chin. Its tongue tickled the sensitive skin between her index finger and thumb, dark head pushing against her palm.

“Memories,” she said. 

oOo

Celestial Year: 6756

Wings dragged through lava, caught on hardened stone. There were cracks of wind-bones breaking, thrums of terror trying to escape cosmic flesh, and the scream that rose in the back of Raphael's throat sounded less and less like a song the longer they fell.

Rock bubbled and popped, hissing in their face, oozing across their skin.

There was just the hungry howling that swallowed everything else, ripping the music from the world like the long screech of a violin that didn’t want to be played—

Raphael hit the bottom.

The force shattered black wings into stained glass pieces, carved lightning shaped cracks into their flesh. A deep rumble shook the walls and more rocks tumbled, dripping and half formed, cracking like eggs on knees and hands and ribs.

Gagging, Raphael tried to turn over, to get off their back—

A cry of agony rose over the boiling anger of the Earth.

Where was the instrument? What had Uriel done with it? Raphael could heal it all, could make it back to the surface, they just needed—they just needed—

 _Lord!_ They sobbed, choking on things they didn’t understand that had been birthed in the back of their throat. _Lord!_

They screamed until gold ichor dotted their lips.

Begged until their voice was broken and could rise no higher.

Uriel's fire bindings continued to burn.

oOo

680 BC

Strings hummed beneath Crawly's fingers, pulsing against wood, whispering through the sky as he plucked out a song that wove itself through thick boughs and thin flower stems. Fruit hung, fat and ripe, from branches and the sun did it's best to peek through the leaves of fig and ash trees.

A bird cried in the heavens and he took the sharp notes, creating a tapestry spawning the aching heart of creation.

One of Crawly's legs hung over the terrace wall, swinging back and forth, dipping with a tease into the stream of water cascading over white stone to the pools below. Wrapped around the gardens in a loving embrace was the Tigris River, dotted with ships from traders and travellers that had come up through the south.

The lute sung beneath his fingers, tireless as he went braided two songs into three that created an ever changing melody beneath the desert sun. The sound became a winding, thunderous river; strong enough to drown, soft enough to cleanse, and deep enough to save.

“That's beautiful,” someone said to his left.

Strings screeched as a palm slapped over them, halting their vibration. Nails dug, ever so subtly, into polished white wood. Crawly's head snapped up and his wide, bright eyes caught Aziraphale's.

“Sorry,” the Angel tried to smile. It looked more like a grimace. “Sorry—I didn't mean to disturb you.”

Crawly forced his hands to relax their vice grip on the lute. “Its fine,” he said, fingers aching to keep playing even as he watched careful, tender hands pick two of the pears off one of the trees. "What are you doing in Nineveh?"

People laughed above them, below them, blocked from sight by plants and stone. It almost felt as though they were alone, as though no one could see them in their little alcove.

"I thought," Aziraphale huffed as he sat down, close enough that a snake tongue could smell the musk of the sea on his skin. "Well, I thought that I'd come to see the gardens," he said.

Humming, Crawly glanced around them at the lush, stacked terraces. Water spilled over the walls from man-made rivers, cascading around fruit trees, flowers, and bushes. They were viridian against white stone, looking dark and soft against harsh corners and carved creatures.

It was a miracle of life in a place that was barren, an ingenuity of mankind; using physics to push water from the river up to the top of the gardens.

Dipping his toes back in the water, Crawly watched the sun glint off the droplets and play along the thin bones of his ankles. His fingers drummed out a song against the lute and it whispered pleased little notes through his wrists.

Movement murmured out of the corner of his eye and Crawly blinked, staring down at the pear cradled in a soft, unworried hand. It sat there, a humble little peace treaty. His song faded away, whisked away like an old memory.

Thin fingers picked the fruit up by the stem, careful of fragile, brown skin.

Aziraphale's smile was wide and bright, shadows dancing across the lines in his face as the wind played with the tips of his white hair. Placing his lute to the side, Crawly held the pear in his hands, traced his thumb over the curve of its curved form.

Together, they lifted the fruit up to their mouths and bit into ripe fruit flesh.

Juice dripped down their chins, rolled over their fingers, landed in their palms and laps. A sinful temptation; a glorious dawn.

Crawly could’ve sworn it tasted nothing like a pear and everything like a new beginning.

oOo

2022 AD

A crash came from somewhere deeper in the apartment and Aziraphale looked up from admiring the bird in flight stuck in stone and sighed. It hadn’t sounded like something fragile hitting stone but more like hollow wood hitting the ground and vibrating with squeezed together, broken notes.

“Crowley?” He called down the hallway.

There was no answer.

Aziraphale frowned. “Crowley? Are you alright?”

Muffled cursing echoed across the slate walls.

With a soft, tired sigh interwoven with strands of fondness, Aziraphale headed down the hallway. He had to follow the sound of clacking plastic and grumbling, eventually finding Crowley at the end. He was in the process of lining cases of various sizes up against the wall, muttering unkind words under his breath.

There was a guitar on the floor, half out of its open case.

“What’s all this, then?” Aziraphale glanced up from the instrument.

Crowley had frozen, his brows high on his forehead, hands hovering over spilled wood and strings. He looked like a rabbit caught in the underbrush, ready to bolt at any moment back to safety. There was an opening in the wall behind him, amber light spilling across the grey floor.

Aziraphale had always been a bit of a nosey bastard. Crowley didn’t stop him from stepping past and pushing his way into the room. The walls were painted in dark greens, soft light illuminating pale wood, brass, and glinting off a black piano.

A modern violin sat between a lyre from the early years of the word and a mandolin with small, faint carvings done by a lazy knife. The trumpet looked like it had been dropped too many times and he wondered what type of sounds the dented edges would make.

“Angel,” Crowley started, paused, swallowed. He rocked back on his heels, shoved his hands in his pockets.

Aziraphale picked up a flute off a stand, brushed his fingers across the faded carvings and smoothed over holes. “Are they all yours?” He looked up, staring at his reflection in purple lenses. The glass distorted his face and, just beyond his own shadow, he could see the sharp yellow of Crowley’s eyes.

“I didn’t _steal_ them—”

Humming, Aziraphale reached out, brushed his hand over a thin elbow. “Apologies, my dear; I didn’t mean it like that.”

Crowley ducked his head, muttered something. He scuffed the toe of his shoe against the floor. It was the best ‘yes’ either of them was going to get.

“Oh,” Aziraphale’s eyes found the faded, pale wood of an old lute. “I remember that one,” he said, placing the flute back and reaching for the instrument. Tired strings hummed beneath his fingers, full of songs humanity no longer knew. “You played it in the Gardens.”

“I did,” Crowley shrugged.

Aziraphale looked around with new eyes. “And that one,” he pointed to the lyre. Green paint had faded but the instrument still looked playable, waiting for fingers to pluck at the strings once more. “It was in that city. The market place—”

“Uruk,” Crowley said.

“Yes,” Aziraphale murmured, faint phantom pain playing across the edge of his memory. He shoved it back down, choosing to let it be suffocated beneath all the times he’d ever thought to question his superiors. “Uruk.”

oOo

465 BC

Laughter spilled across the Nile, feet dipping into the waters. Crawly fumbled for the jug of wine, reaching across Aziraphale, grasping for a clay handle. “Give it!” he cried, moonlight dancing across his hair, eyes bright like the stars he had hung.

“I think,” Aziraphale said, his words slurred and ruining the pompous holier-than-thou tone he was trying to adopt. His back was ridiculously straight, nose pointed high. “That you’ve had quite enough!”

“Sod off!” Crawling onto the altar of a lap (thighs straddling thighs, knees against hips), Crawly managed to get a hold the jug and pulled it towards himself. A fair bit spilled over the side, landing in the river. “I told you it was good,” he grinned, “Now lookit you—wanting to keep it all for yourself.”

Aziraphale had frozen, eyes wide and wild.

Crawly clucked his tongue, not seeing the look, and topped off his goblet. “Greedy angel,” he grumbled and glanced around to find a place to set the jug. There was a flattened dip in the dirt and he scrambled off Aziraphale so he could place his treasure down.

By the time Crawly had settled back in his original spot, Aziraphale was gulping down his wine like a dehydrated beast.

“Alright?” Frowning, Crawly watched the goblet tip further and further until it was empty.

“Fine—” Aziraphale tried, forgetting that he couldn’t breathe and swallow at the same time. Sputtering, he leaned over his knees.

Crawly winced, rubbing his hand across shaking shoulders. “Don’t do that,” he said as wine dripped from a nose, looking like blood beneath the dark sky. “How’d you ever explain it to Gabriel? ‘Dicorporation due to trying to talk and swallow at the same time’. Wouldn’t look good on your resume.”

Wiping his mouth on the back of his arm, Aziraphale breathed in and shot a nasty look at his companion out of the corner of his eye. He tried to speak, managed to get out one choked syllable, and lurched forward in a coughing fit.

Crawly hummed in sympathy, rubbing his palm down a trembling spine. “That’s it, let it out.” His fingers trailed lower, counting vertebrae, reached the middle of Aziraphale’s back—

Something that managed to be soft and hard at the same time smacked into skin and Crawly hit the ground, his elbow knocking into clay. Wine spilled down the back of his shirt, dripping through linen, sinking into his hair. The jug rolled, clattering down the bank, landing with a splash in the water.

“Crawly? Oh dear, are you alright?”

A hand patted up his chest, brushing against the underside of his chin. Aziraphale blocked out the stars, his eyes wide and blue, hair blonde and bright beneath the moonlight.

Sobering up with a blink, Crawly sat up, rubbed at the back of his head, winced at the stickiness and smell that clung to his clothes. “What was that? An animal?”

“You’re bleeding,” fingers brushed under dark hair, behind an ear. “I’m so sorry, my dear—” Aziraphale’s voice was hoarse, still catching on the tremors of his coughs. “I just reacted—”

“I’m not bleeding,” Crawly grimaced as the wine ran its way down his shoulders and spine. “Not bleeding, promise—I’m _fine_.” He let his head fall forward obediently, sighing as careful hands checked the back of his skull for any wounds. “Where’s that blasted—oh no.”

The Nile had gotten a hold of the jug. He watched waters whisk it further into the river to become a play thing for hippos and crocodiles. All sorts of beasties that couldn’t enjoy it as much as he could.

“I paid good money for that wine.”

“You did not,” Aziraphale grumbled, leaning back once his search was complete. “And don’t even pretend otherwise.”

Crawly straightened, stretched out his arms. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a small grin. “Paid for it with good hard labour, I did.”

With a snort, Aziraphale rolled his eyes and miracle away most of the mess. “There,” his voice was soft, “all better?”

“Thanks, Angel,” Crawly leaned back to look at the sky. Silence settled between them as if it was a physical thing; wrapping around their shoulders like a blanket or a coat. “What did you mean,” the words came slowly, chosen carefully, “when you said that you ‘just reacted’?”

Aziraphale pulled away. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s _something_ ,” Crawly corrected, turning so he could face the Angel.

“Well,” hands pulled at each other, nails dug into skin. “I just figured you knew—”

Serpent eyes narrowed. A forked tongue flicked. “Knew what?”

Aziraphale breathed in and turned. Moonlight highlighted his nose and the curve of his face, shying away from the shadow that played across his eyes. “I was demoted, Crawly.”

“Demoted?” Well, yes, he had known that. “From a Cherub, right? They made you a principality.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale winced and looked towards the river.

Light curved over his back.

“Not literally,” Crawly spat, “Not literally—they didn’t—they couldn’t have—” _been that cruel_.

Oh, but they could have. They had been.

_Screams were silenced by lava, the beating wings only fuelling the blaze of holy flame._

“ _Bastards_ ,” Crawly bared his teeth, the word more a hiss than actual language. “It was unnecessary,” he said, “unnecessary and _cruel_.” Reaching out, he pressed his palm to Aziraphale’s shoulder and—when there was only a minor flinch—coiled his arm around a shaking, celestial body.

The Demon held the Angel close to his chest, pressed his lips to softly curled hair. “You didn’t deserve that,” he said, voice quiet so only Aziraphale and the night could hear him. “No matter what you’d done, you didn’t deserve _that_.”

Wrapping his arms around Crawly’s waist, Aziraphale shook and huffed and sniffled. But he didn’t cry.

And when the moon helped to create their shadows, the Angel only had two wings where, in the beginning, he’d once had four.

oOo

“Do you believe in love, Crowley?”

“I suppose I must.”

“You must?”

“Well, there doesn’t seem to be an answer other than love, Angel. So I suppose I must believe in it because there’s no other explanation.”

oOo

2019 AD

Ancient Greek had been copied by a studious, careful hand and covered page after page. There were small little ink smears here and there, tiny little swirls, uneven lines. It hadn’t been printed—not by any machine at least—and Aziraphale glanced over pencil and fountain pen along the border; examining notes written in English, Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic by those same fingers.

The paper was thick, old, perhaps hand pressed. It had jagged corners, little tears here and there, and smelled, strikingly, of smoke and salt. Not sweat salt, but sea salt. As if the book had spent some time at the bottom of the sea. Since there was no water damage of any kind, Aziraphale dismissed that thought.

No title page greeted him, no author name; just writing and the small doodle of a winding snake on the back of the cover. The ink sang of small little flashes of emotions; frustration, love, joy, sorrow. It was a song all of its own, an ancient heartache only soothed by putting pen to paper.

Flipping to the beginning, Aziraphale brushed his fingers one more time through Crowley’s hair, smiling at the soft little hum his touch had earned, and started to read.

_I once hung my memories in the sky,_

_sang them to sleep,_

_whispered them secrets._

_They cried the day of the Fall,_

_wailed out their agony to the universe._

_I wonder if they would still be silent_

_if I had pleaded guilty._

oOo

325 BC

Silver waves lapped at Crawly's feet, spraying salty mist across her toes as the moon--gloriously orange and looking like a massive eye—watched her. Her lute sat across her lap, pale wood faded but no less bright against the silver dancing across the surface of the Mediterranean. Slow, lazy fingers plucked out a tune that might have existed three hundred years ago but was now lost to time and the morality of man.

A ship drifted out beneath the star-filled sky, sails painted a pomegranate crimson. Torches flickered along the deck, revealing the ghosts of humans stepping over their comrades, sleeping in curled piles, or leaning against the mast to stare up at the stories painted high above their heads.

Storm clouds gathered in the distance, rolling over where the sky kissed the water.

“You play very well,” A voice said, growing from the darkness.

Crawly looked up from the sea, focusing on the slim outline of a woman. She blended in with the trees and rocks and yet seemed to be separated from them; like an oil painting surrounded by potted plants. The wind from the approaching storm tugged at her toga, played with the loose strands of her hair.

“Thank you,” Crawly said, sitting up straight, mouth fumbling around a just-learned-language.

The woman chose her steps carefully, moonlight illuminating the beach and her bare feet. She sat on the rock, pressing their shoulders and thighs together. “Do you write them?”

“Songs?” Crawly turned to look out over the water, absently picking at strings. “Yes,” she said, paused, thinking about the song that had vibrated through the square earlier that day. There had been a crowd gathered around the performer, too dense for her to spot the artist. “But not lyrics.”

Humming, the woman tapped her finger against the belly of the lute. “Play for me?”

The Greeks were an interesting people, Crawly thought, brushing her fingers down the strings. They were proud, demanding, knowing of their own self worth; building their towering statues and temples.

Crawly breathed in the salt water air, closed her eyes, and thought about people clapping their hands in the desert night, of a little girl sitting at the bank of the river, of drownings and fires and pears. She closed her eyes—

And played.

Something ancient and celestial rose from old wood, rang from tired strings. It was a song of stars, of planets, of nebulas. A song of rebellion, of sorrow, of lost siblings. The history of the world was at Crawly's fingertips and she knitted it through the powerful beat of wings and thunder.

A human voice joined in, singing in a soft crooning voice, rising and falling for a goddess and a woman and love that crashed like a ship upon rocks. Words fumbled through a beat—imperfectly perfect as the lute and the lyrics tangoed beneath the sky. The dance rose and fell, bathing the island and sea, reaching the far ends of the world and never leaving the space between stone and water.

Gradually, it faded into the dark, slipping back to the shadows.

Crawly opened her eyes and looked upon skin painted with sharp, silver, moonlight brushstrokes. “You sing very well,” she said.

“You play very well,” the woman said, her eyes glinting with mischief.

A memory drifted across the sea breeze of another woman who smelled of the same islands and that played a flute on the plain before Uruk. Perhaps it was the memory of that week; perhaps it was the song thrumming through the air. Whatever it was, Crawly opened her mouth: "Will you teach me?"

The woman smiled. "Will _you_ teach _me_?"

"Yes," Crawly said; immediately, instantly, desperately.

Hands brushed sand off white fabric. Arms stretched, the world kept turning. "What's your name, traveller?"

The truth sat heavy on Crawly's tongue but it burned, it was false. So she swallowed it. "Pyriphoitos," left her mouth instead.

"Pyriphoitos," the woman said, trying out the word between her teeth. "Well met, Pyriphoitos."

Waves crashed upon the rocks, spraying them with a light mist as thunder rumbled in the distance.

"My name is Sappho."

2022 AD

An idea sparked in Aziraphale’s mind, catching on tinder and growing stronger as he looked over the instruments. “My dear,” he said, careful to keep his voice light. “Will you play something for me?”

Crowley looked like he would rather swallow down a rotten mouse. “Play?” He said—well, grumbled, really.

“Oh, yes, please,” Aziraphale picked up the lute, brushed his fingers along the plants carved into the wood that had gone extinct long ago. “You see, it’s just that I haven’t heard some of them in a while. I would, well,” he paused, “I would very much like to hear them again.”

Taking the offered instrument, Crowley plucked the strings and sound rose between them, embracing both angel and demon as if they were old friends. It was deeper than it had been; rougher but not worse. No, it simply sounded different with age.

“It’s been a while,” Crowley told him—a half hearted warning—as he tuned the strings. “I haven’t played since—” The words halted by a gate of teeth and were swallowed.

Aziraphale watched a shadow pass beneath dark lenses and reached up without thinking, straightening the glasses. “That’s alright, my dear,” he said, pulling back as if it hadn’t been out of the ordinary. “Just play what you remember.”

Crowley breathed in, breathed out, and sat on the floor. Aziraphale settled across from him, hands folded in his lap.

There was a moment of fumbling, where fingers landed in places they hadn’t been in centuries. Eventually they steadied, focused, and the tender plucking became a rhythm, a melody, a song. It filled the corners of the room and the edges of their souls, binding with twine and tasting of meals no longer available.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and saw leaves dancing in the wind, ship sails fluttering over river waters, and pear juice dripping over fingers. Crowley was there, his head haloed by the sun, eyes softened by ripe fruit and lazy hours.

oOo

230 BC

Crawly slithered across cold, limestone floor, keeping out of sight of Roman Gods and scholars. His black scales gleamed with an oil-shine, his yellow eyes were bright beneath the torches.

Shelves lined the walls, stacked tall with scrolls from every corner of the globe.

He could smell the feet that had passed through—travellers from Europe, from Asia, from across deserts and oceans and forests. Crawly’s tongue flicked out of his mouth and he slid into a corner to watch a librarian pass. 

Only when the vibrations in the floor faded did he make his way through the Gods and Goddesses, climbing up stairs, looking, looking, _looking_.

Feet took the place of coils and the blend of blues-purples-greens faded to a world lit by fire. Grabbing one of the torches from the wall, he browsed the stacks, pawing through scrolls—

“There you are,” Crawly murmured, hanging the torch on the wall and picking up the pages. They had been copied, carefully, months ago and were fresh beneath his fingers, gently, lovingly made by hands that knew what they were doing.

He’d already taken what he needed from the Athenian who had brought the originals.

Sappho’s poetry was written in carefully crafted letters, translated from Greek to Latin. Crawly flipped through the papyrus, reading what few lines he could make out in the long, dark shadows with a small, fond smile before putting them back.

Beside them were rolled up scrolls labelled _Pyriphoitos_. He dragged his finger across the seals, tongue flickering. In the dark he could almost taste salt-bitter air, taste the sting of wine against dry lips, hear the laughter of a young woman.

“Who goes there?” The cry echoed across stone, vibrating through snake-bones.

Crawly’s head snapped up and he snatched the scrolls he could, piling them together.

“Hey!” Feet slapped against stone.

A scroll tumbled out of the pile, rolling across stone as a man rounded the corner.

Hissing in irritation, Crawly turned and fled with what was left of his treasure.

Only when he was sitting back in his tavern room, looking out over the city of Alexandria, did he dare breathe again.

oOo

_It would be enough for_

_you to pick up_

_these words and think_

_‘I would have loved you’._

_It would be just_

_enough._

_\- Pyriphoitos_

oOo

150 BC

Crawly looked up when the flaps to the tent were pushed open. Smoke filtered in, rising from the burning city besides the Tigris River. It smelled of flesh and blood, of livelihoods lost and uncaring kings picking a fight in a city that was never theirs to burn.

Mithridates, King of Paritha, paused. His beard was trimmed by careful hands, hair braided back away from his face. Brass and leather armoured his body with a short sword at his hip that was used more for ornamentation than actual blood spilling. He paused, catching sight of her sitting cross-legged on the crimson and gold rugs.

Sharp, yellow eyes met his dark ones, unblinking and unflinchingly. Horse hair rope rubbed into her wrists, smelling of the beast they had taken it from.

“Ah,” he said, tearing his eyes away, walking over to the jug of wine, pouring himself a goblet. “And what is your name?”

Crawly watched him, holding her tongue.

Men laughed outside the tent, running past. A woman screamed before the sound was swallowed by the night. 

Mithridates sat down in one of his large, wooden chairs, put the goblet against his lips, and ignored the soldiers moving outside his tent. The wine dribbled into his beard while his distracted gaze dragged across bared shoulders that had been kissed by the harsh, chapped lips of the sun.

“You can’t keep your silence forever.”

He sounded so certain.

“You’re burning my city,” Crawly told him, unblinking. My city, my gardens, my people.

Mithridates didn’t meet her stare, his eyes raking over her chest, her hips, her thighs. “Your city?”

She gave him a serpent’s smile. All bared teeth and dripping venom.

The Parthian King laughed. It was a hacking, horrible thing. Like the sound a dog made before it threw up. "You're not in a position to say such things," he said and took another sip of his wine.

Crowley hummed, looked over the calf-skin that made up the tent walls, the wooden beams, the easily spilled lanterns. "You destroyed the Hanging Gardens,” she said.

"They got in the way."

"I'm sure," the words were soft, treading carefully upon the carpet. Flickering flames made it look like the gold snakes on her arms were moving.

The tent flaps opened, blonde hair entered, blue eyes met yellow. Aziraphale gaped, swallowed, closed his mouth. “The Persian forces are approaching from the north,” he said, turning his face to the King even as his eyes kept moving back to Crawly.

Mithridates cursed, set his goblet down. It spilled as he swooped past, crimson liquid dripping over the table like blood. Crawly watched the cup roll, tumble, hit the ground.

Aziraphale wrung his hands. “Crawly,” he fumbled like a juggler trying four oranges instead of three for the first time. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

She lifted her chin. “I could say the same,” Crawly kept her voice carefully blank even as her fingers curled into fists. “Never thought I would see an angel take sides in a war.”

“Well,” Aziraphale turned his head away. “We all have our orders.”

“How very _just_ of you,” she murmured. Crawly looked at one of the lanterns hanging from the wood frame. Rust inched along the iron.

Aziraphale bristled. “And what would you have me do?” He snapped, shoulders shaking. “Question the almighty? Disagree with my superiors? Go against orders?”

Rope became alive, a long, forked tongue flickering against her skin. Running her fingers over black scales, Crawly got to her feet. She and the snake both turned their dark, shadowed gazes to Aziraphale.

“I suppose,” she said, words digging into skin like a blade. “I expected you to grow a _spine_ after Gomorrah.” The words were cruel. Crawly regretted them as soon as they’d left her lips but they had been formed anyways and sat between them, heavy and dripping.

The hoop holding the lantern snapped and it hit the floor. Fire spilled across leather and wood, licking up the sides of the tent.

Yellow and red mix across Aziraphale’s features. He looked away, shame craving deep, jagged lines across his face.

“I’m sorry,” His voice was soft.

“I’m not the one who needs to hear those words,” Crawly said. Her tone had gentled, turning more sad than angry.

oOo

2019 AD

Clouds rolled in while Aziraphale read, page after page flying by as the minutes turned into hours. Crowley continued to sleep, shifting only occasionally, his body curling into warmth. Poetry and tiny bits of prose echoed years of rage and desperation that bled out to exhaustion, to new love, to tender desperation. The pen dug a little deeper for the ones that sang of pain, swirled a little lighter for the ones full of passion.

Some things were too close to be a coincidence and some deep part of Aziraphale wished he could visit his bookshop because he knew the poet. He knew lines of their work, sections discovered while the rest had been lost to time. Here it all was; copied down where so few eyes could lay upon it.

He read over another lyrical poem of laughing friendship and singing by the sea, flipped the page with a small smile, and paused.

The paper was covered in Enochian that started in one corner with clear and carefully written and curled like a serpent’s body. Here and there the pen had pierced the page, ink had been smeared by water dripped from above, words had been scratched out and replaced by others. Turning rough and jagged across the crease, the author had spun into agonizing sorrow.

It was a letter.

Addressed to Jehovah.

Aziraphale closed the book, set it on his lap.

Beside him, Crowley groaned as his eyes fluttered open.

oOo

Celestial Year: 6756

On the first day, Raphael tried to bite their way through the bindings. Teeth—angelic or not—refused to pierce the rope. They felt it burning their gums, cutting away at their teeth.

No answer came from God.

On the second day, Raphael tugged until their wrists spilled ichor into the lava. The ground spat, hissed, and flared like a furious cobra. Still they pulled, still the rope refused to loosen.

No answer came from God.

On the third day, Raphael sang. It was a quiet song, a soft song. One filled with betrayal and rage and falling stars. On and on the hymn went, mourning their fallen siblings.

No answer came from God.

On the fourth day, Raphael whispered soft words to the fire-rope. Promised them sweet things, kind things, a kiss from the stars themselves. The ropes loosened enough and they scrambled free.

No answer came from God.

On the fifth day, Raphael sang a song of healing through a scream torn throat. Fire-Flute bones snapped together, creating the beat for their teeth-gritted lyrics. The wounds upon their wrists didn't mend—made as they were by holy flame.

No answer came from God.

On the sixth day, Raphael pressed their hands into lava walls, felt their gashes ignite. Foot by foot, they climbed. Foot by foot they felt the lava hardening into rock. Something cool dripped across their forehead, rolling down a grey, blackened cheek.

No answer came from God.

On the seventh day, halfway up the hole, Raphael curled up on a ledge of stone and slept.

No answer came from God.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm neck deep in the alaskan wilderness and wrote this while i wasn't choking on smoke so please forgive all mistakes
> 
> you can yell at me at https://smiling-like-a-snake.tumblr.com/ where i sometimes write shorter period pieces

**Author's Note:**

> i crash coursed my way through the history of mesopotamia in one week and i don't regret any of it


End file.
